Saturday, April 8, 2017

APc-48...(Part IV)...




Little is known of Lynch Shipbuilders, which completed and turned over to the US Navy APc-48...Wikipedia offers little, saying they were a California shipbuilder constructing tugs and cargo ships in San Diego...Tim Colton in his online source, ShipbuildingHistory, says the following:

"This yard had been idle for years when it was acquired and reactivated in 1940 by Martinolich Shipbuilding.  Martinolich got into difficulties early, however, and Frank Lynch, who had moved to San Diego from Idaho in 1926 and was in the lumber business, took over the yard in 1941.  The yard was at the foot of 28th Street, immediately adjacent to NASSCO, and Lynch sold it to NASSCO in 1948."

The site also lists a number of ships built by the company before being absorbed into NASSCO...References to Frank Lynch are as vague as his company, but research shows a book written by Richard W. Crawford titled, "The Way We Were in San Diego" telling of Frank C. Lynch, and his role in the lumber industry with particular regard to the huge log rafts assembled and floated downstream by the Benson Lumber Company for later milling...Quoting the book:

"Simon Benson profited from his log rafts until 1911, when he decided to sell his San Diego interests to his mill manager, O.J. Evenson, and San Diego investor, Frank C. Lynch. Evenson ran the mill until his retirement in 1936. Frank Lynch took over, but as World War II approached, the era of log rafts was ending.

In August 1941, Log Raft number 120 caught fire off the coast near Monterrey. The mystery of how a raft of wet logs could be destroyed at sea by fire was never solved. Lynch suggested wartime sabotage. He turned the wreckage over to the underwriters and then, blaming rising insurance rates, decided to terminate the Benson rafts, ending a unique chapter in San Diego history."

It is noted by this author that the "wartime sabotage" would have occurred months before the surprise Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor, and the ensuing declaration of war...Whether this was the same Frank Lynch who bought the failing Martinolich Shipbuilding Co. yard is unclear, only the coincidence of the sudden infusion of cash, following an insurance payoff in another failing business, both on the docks of San Diego, and both dealing in large amounts of lumber, all in the same short time frame remains as circumstantial...

To further muddy the waters, Frank P. Lynch II (note the differing middle initial) was listed on a genealogy website as murdered in an unknown location on an unknown date, and buried in San Diego...His occupation is shown as pediatric surgeon...Other details are marked private, other than his wife's maiden name as Hawkins (later hyphenated as Hawkins-Lynch), and the submission of the posting by Brian Hawkins...

Delving further, Frank P. Lynch III, a pediatric surgeon, born 10/4/1940, died 6/2/2003, and is buried in a San Diego cemetery...Obituary information is sketchy, noting a rank of Colonel in the US Army...His privately placed grave marker (not VA supplied) lists the Congressional Medal of Honor and Silver Star as having been awarded, with service in Vietnam and Desert Storm...A search of CMoH records by this author shows no award of the Medal to this person...Find A Grave Memorial# 100738263 also suggests the Silver Star was actually an award of the Bronze Star...

A possibly misworded document found in the State Bar Court of California archives, involving the disbarment hearing of G. Paul Howes of San Diego, shows Frank Lynch Jr. listed as a cooperating incarcerated witness, with Frank Lynch III shown as paying for attendance at a trial involving alleged misconduct by Howes in 1994, but not being called as a witness...The miswording reference above calls into question Lynch III being listed as the father of Lynch Jr...

All this information may be entirely coincidental and unrelated, but the semi-shady reputations of some, the similarity in name, the interlocking dates and the locale may be nothing more than mere coincidence...What is known is that Lynch Shipbuilders, under contract to the US Navy, built APc-48 in its shipyard in San Diego, following which the ship had a longer life than either its parent builder, or many of its crew, having served faithfully under many captains...
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